display of WPA-initiated crafts (public domain image)

What became of the Obama meme-machine? How could the campaign that so vigorously appropriated the viral marketing strategies of such mainstays of youth culture as social networking and graffiti graphics get it so wrong when selling actual policy? Where’s the poetry? “Public option“..!? “Single payer“..!? How about starting over by re-branding the issue to capture the imagination of the most mobile and active constituency that brought the administration into office? I’m thinking something like the HHH (Healthy Happy Humans) may be more like it.

Let’s hope the Obama administration regains its footing and begins to pay closer attention to trends in youth culture. For example, there are murmurings of a grass roots revival of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) around the edges of the contemporary art/craft/design world. My friend Christopher Robbins will be among a group of artists hosting a dinner to discuss the topic this Saturday evening at FEAST in Brooklyn. You can learn more about Christopher’s ideas on the subject by clicking here, and you may read my interview with Christopher by clicking here.

It’s never too late to tap the innate enthusiasm to simply do good shared by the majority of Americans, particularly the young, whose idealism demonstrably motivates them to action.

Tagged: contemporary art, craft, innovation, obama, sustainability, trends, wpa

‘feeder fish’, like these anchovies abound this time of year (public domain image)

I’ve begun making the scale models for our giant, mosaic fish sculptures that will live permanently outside the new building for the Ocean View branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission, the project is the latest wowhaus public art project, and continues our ongoing exploration of the role of watersheds in the habitat of a bioregion. The largest sculpture, about 8′ tall, is an homage to the tiny feeder fish that thrive along sandy shores within view of the library, particularly the California Grunion (Leuresthes tenuis), who are known to occasionally spawn on nearby beaches under the new and full moons during springtime.

California grunion (Leuresthes tenuis) spawn at night on beaches (public domain)

Ene and I like the idea of heroizing such an invisible but essential maritime food source, without which the web of life would collapse.  We think the concept of ‘feeder fish’ in general is an apt metaphor for the role of public libraries in a democracy. The second sculpture will be a stylized, scaled up version of the Vermilion Rockfish (Sebastes miniatus), still a familiar fish living close to shore that was once an important food source for the Coast Miwok and the early immigrants to San Francisco’s shores.

study for the steel armature for the 8′ high fish sculpture

Tagged: california flora, contemporary art, deep craft, innovation, public art, scott Constable, sustainability, wowhaus

I doubt the rancher who owns this tiny roadside outbuilding shares my enthusiasm for the patterns of blistered paint on its corrugated walls. He’d probably agree that it needs repainting and was a poorly executed job to begin with, or that the galvanized steel was best left exposed to the elements without any paint at all. By the time it took the paint to blister, the wall would have developed a lovely patina of blotchy moss and pitted corrosion, given the proximity to the oft-fog-shrouded coast.

Regardless, the wall got me thinking about how much I like seeing how man-made structures find equilibrium with their environment, all the more so when the decay resulting from use and exposure is anticipated. Entropy only ever increases over time. Or, as the German physicist Rudolf Clausius wrote in 1862:

The algebraic sum of all the transformations occurring in a cyclical process can only be positive, or, as an extreme case, equal to nothing. (second law of thermodynamics)

So, my digressive conclusion is that any hand wrought thing works best when the aesthetic of its own decay is considered a design requirement.

Tagged: aesthetics, contemporary art, craft philosophy, deep craft, entropy, scott Constable, vernacular architecture

stacks of cedar dry in the warm September air

I counted five Kestrel perched along barbed wire as I wound down Marshall-Petaluma Road towards Tomales Bay from Evan Shively’s mill. I had been inspecting the deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) Evan milled for my latest interior design commission, and I was delighted to find the fragrant stacks neatly stickered for air-drying on the S2 Ranch.

Evan sequenced the wider boards with white, numbered labels

Evan even took the care to label the sequence of wider boards as they came off the log, which will make for a lovely pattern to explore in my design of interior furnishings. The cedar stock should be adequately dry after nearly two months kissed by the dry breezes of our Indian Summer, just ready for my winter’s production in the shop.

the ciders continue to bubble away as they ferment

The lengthening nights have been getting cooler, with coyotes whooping their call and response as they venture into the dark clearings of a moonless sky. The hawks have been migrating along the coast, circling high over our ridgetop meadows and resting atop the redwood trees. The termites arrived as they do in swarms unannounced, and thankfully left as mysteriously. Meanwhile, the ciders continue their bubbling fermentation in glass carboys.

To follow my weekly reports about cyclic, natural events in and around West Sonoma County, CA, please follow the thread by clicking here.

Tagged: aesthetics, california coast, california flora, craft, deep craft, interior design, phenology, scott Constable, slow design, sonoma coast, traditional craft, woodworking

Around the autumn equinox is typically our hottest, driest time of year, with golden brown fields and chalk dry dust under the orchard trees, now barren after harvest. The tips of the redwood branches have turned an orange-y yellow, and happily soak up the sea fog of a rare night. I can feel the rains lurking and my days are marked with anticipation. I know I need to prepare my woodpiles for winter shop work, clear the gutters, and make any house repairs before the wet season arrives and the sun’s lowering angle keeps everything damp until late spring.

Over the past two weeks I made and installed 16 small casement windows as a clerestory on the south-facing kneewall above our shed-roofed main floor. I love making windows, especially when I can use one of my side bead planes (above). I use the plane to cut a rounded ‘bead’ at the bottom corner of the exterior casing, which creates a drip edge for rainwater, preventing it from wicking back towards the house. The bead is kind of a special case of a chamfer, and is more often found used as pure decoration on 18^th century furniture than as a functional feature in contemporary architecture. I first learned of its simple effectiveness while studying the vernacular, wooden architecture of coastal New England, where I began collecting bead planes and learning how to use them. For me, cutting beads in well-seasoned cedar or cypress while thinking about shortening days and pending storms hearkens autumn. It’s like my World Series.

Tagged: aesthetics, deep craft, DIY, scott Constable, slow design, traditional craft, vernacular architecture, woodworking

Scoping a site for Watershed Field Research in Fruitvale

One of the most rewarding aspects of a collaborative working relationship is that both the relationship and the work it produces tend to improve over time. Whenever Ene and I (aka wowhaus) perform field research for one of our public projects, we pay as close attention to streamlining the mechanics of our process as to the production of meaningful data. Sometimes this can be as deceptively simple as making sure we keep it entertaining for us and engaging for our participants. As with travel, the pleasure often derives from unintended consequences.

Ene fields responses to visual symbols of water at the Grand Lake farmer’s market

The thing I like best about staging the mini interventions that comprise our project research is the opportunity to make the props. I like the formal constraints of having very limited time and money to design and make something that persists in functioning well despite the odds. Granted, the results border on slapstick, but that fits with my default craftitude. To support the field research for our Watershed Marker project for the City of Oakland, I made a portfolio case that doubles as a surprisingly un-flimsy, portable table. Able to carry several large pads of paper, magic markers, clipboards and more, the case is easy to carry over several city blocks, and the table sets up and breaks down in minutes, the legs being stowed within.

My surprisingly un-flimsy, portable valise/table for field research sets up in minutes

Tagged: aesthetics, appropriate technology, contemporary art, deep craft, DIY, green design, innovation, Oakland, scott Constable, watershed, wowhaus

representations of water from across time and cultures

How do we indicate water, let alone its increasing significance in maintaining the fabric of a healthy urban watershed? As we prepare a final design for the City of Oakland’s system of Watershed Markers, Ene and I will spend the weekend at farmer’s markets and major pedestrian thoroughfares throughout the East Bay, soliciting feedback on how best to frame a contemporary Watershed Morphology.

In keeping with our preferred, ’socially-engaged’ process, we’ve assembled panels of schematic, graphic representations of water (see above) from across time and culture to learn what resonates with people in the course of everyday life. The major challenge  will be to confirm a visual language that is both recognizable across the socio-economic spectrum, while presenting something compellingly new and replicable, with a long-range view of urban life.

We would love to have your feedback as we home in on a design over the coming weeks. If you’re in the East Bay over the weekend, please leave a comment with your contact info and I will let you know where we’ll be.

Tagged: contemporary art, deep craft, green design, innovation, jack london square, Oakland, public art, scott Constable, slow design, sustainability, watershed, wowhaus